


i could have danced all night

by nateheywood



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Cute, Fix-It, Fluff, Leonard Snart Lives, M/M, Time Travel, arguments about who's a hero and whatnot, just a small treat for the holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:28:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21941158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nateheywood/pseuds/nateheywood
Summary: Mick hasn't celebrated anything for three years. But now that Len is back, he might have some reason to.
Relationships: Mick Rory/Leonard Snart
Comments: 6
Kudos: 82
Collections: Coldwave Winter Holiday Exchange 2019





	i could have danced all night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueelvewithwings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueelvewithwings/gifts).



> This ended up being more of a character study than a real plot but I think I still managed to get the holiday spirit in there!
> 
> For blueelvewithwings! I hope you like it!! 
> 
> Prompt:
> 
> Mick never liked the holidays. It's a bunch of emotional garbage, if you ask him. And this year, dealing with the loss of Snart, he's even less in the mood to celebrate. In fact, if Haircut crosses his path with another holiday-themed thing, he might just strangle him. But then Len comes back two days before the holidays, covered in ashes and with eyes that have never been this impossibly blue, and he looks haunted and torn and sad but he's *Len* and he's *alive*. And for the first time, Mick wants to celebrate.

Len is back, and Ray is babbling on about a holiday party. What’s significant about this is that Mick isn’t as annoyed as he should be.

Mick hasn’t ever been a good Christian, much to the bane of his Irish-Catholic mother’s existence. But he’s always had a weird tension with religion, and that weird tension includes random visits to the confessional and attending the Easter and Christmas Masses. It then grew to involve Len and  _ his _ weird relationship with Judaism, which Mick is still trying his hardest to understand, and “Christmas” became “the holidays”.

Even still, Mick hasn’t loved the holidays. They were sentimental and useless, and usually involved copious amounts of guilt that he’d rather leave behind. His celebrations with Len and Lisa weren’t for Christmas, or for Hanukkah, but for  _ them  _ \- they elevated Christmas, even with their Jewishness, and they’d let him in on their own traditions. Without them, everything just left a bad taste in his mouth. Without  _ Len,  _ the thought of celebrating made his stomach turn. 

But now, Len is back.

Mick doesn’t think he’d longed this much for the warm dinners and soft music even when Len was gone. This may be why he isn’t as upset with Ray and Sara’s ambush as he probably should be, considering it’s what qualifies as the time stream’s crack of dawn.

“This is one of the years where Hanukkah is actually happening during Christmas!” Ray is saying. He keeps peering back into the room, looking for Len. Mick makes sure he’s blocking the view. “We can actually have a legitimate holiday party!”

Mick frowns. “What were we having before?”

Ray opens his mouth, but Len pipes up from somewhere in the bedroom. “You were having Christmas parties that you pretended weren’t Christmas parties.”

Ray looks excited at Len’s participation in the matter. “It’s different when Hanukkah is actually happening,” he says. 

“Come on,” Sara wheedles. “Len hasn’t experienced the brilliance of my roasts!”

“You mean Gideon’s roasts,” Mick says flatly, and Sara narrows her eyes.

“I--”

“This is the first time the entire team is going to be together,” Ray says, eyes growing huge. Mick raises his eyebrows at him. 

“Len’s been here for a week,” he says. “We have dinner every night.”

“We’ve barely seen him,” Sara says, eyes serious. “Sitting quietly at dinner and then leaving again hardly counts.”

There was a time when Mick would give in to the flare of anger in his chest and slam the door in her face, and Ray’s wince tells him that they’re still halfway expecting it, but she’s right. Len’s been…  _ different,  _ since he got back, quiet and sad and a little jumpy, and Mick hasn’t seen much more of him then Sara has.

“Fine,” he says shortly. There’s just enough time to see Ray’s blinding grin before he shuts the door and turns to face Len’s glare. He’s immune to it, but it’s still a little frightening to see that expression with Len’s brand-new glowing eyes.

“What,” he asks flatly, moving to pull a sweater over his wife beater. 

“Since when did you start making decisions for two people?” 

“Since I got married,” Mick shoots back. “Sara’s right. The team misses you--”

“I’ve never  _ met  _ the team,” Len snaps. 

Mick turns to look at him. “That could’ve been a good point,” he says, moving to sit next to Len on the bed. “If you’d made an effort to see Sara. Haircut misses you too.”

Len looks uncomfortable, and Mick is reminded not for the first time that Len hasn’t gotten to spend three years with everyone’s oppressive sentimentality. It only makes him more determined to force Len out.

“They don’t miss me,” Len mutters. 

“Didn’t know you knew their feelings better than they did,” Mick says, and Len curls his lip.

“They miss what they think is a  _ hero, _ ” Len says, spitting the word out like it’s something to be ashamed of. “I’m not that. I did it to save  _ you,  _ not them.”

Guilt dips into his stomach at the reminder that the entire situation was his fault. “That’s still heroic,” Mick says. He disagrees on Len’s point as well, but that one is a losing battle.

Len looks at him like he’s grown a second head. “What have they  _ done  _ to you?” he asks. “You’ve gone  _ soft. _ ”

“You went soft the minute you got on this ship,” Mick says, trying not to bristle at the words that Len doesn’t know are familiar ones. 

“I’m not the one who saved Raymond,” Len says. “ _ Twice. _ ”

“I’m not the one who betrayed his partner for the greater good,” Mick shoots back. “I’m not the one who sacrificed himself.”

“You were about to be,” Len sneers.

Mick is about to snap back, something about how he really wasn’t thinking about anything but dying in a proper blaze of glory, but that feeling still rubs something raw within him and he knows it will be worse for Len, so he lets it go.

Since when did he become the bigger man?

“We were talking about Haircut’s holiday party,” Mick says instead.

Len deflates like Mick’s just popped him like a balloon. His anger dissipates into his usual air of melancholy that Mick can hardly bear, and Mick is tempted to egg the anger back. Anything but this strange sadness.

“We were,” he says.

They sit in silence for a long moment, Len staring at the floor and Mick staring at Len. It’s a little oppressive, tense, but not awkward. Never awkward.

Mick thinks about letting it go. About avoiding the party like he’s done in the past, allowing Len to avoid everyone else for a little longer. It’s tempting.

“I do miss it,” Len says quietly, before Mick can grunt his concession and leave him alone for the day. “Celebrating with you. And Lisa.”

“I miss it too,” Mick says lowly. 

Len grabs his hand and holds it like a lifeline. Mick startles at the contact - Len’s been avoiding physical touch like it hurts ever since he got back. Mick had chalked it up to over sensitivity with his new skin, his new  _ body -  _ but this doesn’t feel like it’s causing Len any harm. 

“I’ll go to the party,” Len says begrudgingly. “But let me show you something first.”

Mick doesn’t even have time to give an affirmative before there’s a strange dip in his stomach and a swirl of black.

He blinks his eyes open to find himself in their old safehouse they’d had in the middle of the nineties.

“What--?” he breathes in, taking in the roaring fire in the fireplace, the menorah on the mantle, the Advent candles on the counter. 

“I can’t control it very well,” Len says, letting go of him quickly. “I was aiming for 2003, but this works.”

Mick doesn’t think he’s ever seen him so unsure, and the pieces are sliding together quickly. The lack of touch, the avoidance of the team - “How many time periods have you been to in the last week?” he asks.

“Let’s just say I’m the world’s foremost expert in a lot of things,” Len says airily, and Mick stares at him.

“Can you get us back?”

“Probably,” Len says, shrugging. “That seems to be the pattern for me, at least.”

Mick tours the room, taking in the decorations, the warmth, the  _ music.  _ He remembers dancing to this, after getting back from a last minute run to the store.

“When do we get back?” Mick says, and Len seems to understand what he’s asking even without any explanation. Mick has  _ missed  _ him.

“Around thirty minutes,” he says, eyes glowing so, so brightly. 

“I say we take advantage of it,” Mick says, and he draws Len to him.

“I can’t--”

“I don’t care,” Mick says, beginning to sway. “They’ll find us if we end up somewhere else.”

Len seems to mull it over before suddenly he’s relaxing, going along with the steps rather than resisting Mick’s direction. 

“This is the best Frank Sinatra song,” he says, leaning his head against Mick’s chest. “I had good taste.”

“Debatable,” Mick says.

“Hilarious,” Len drawls, and it’s so familiar that Mick’s heart swells. “There’s a reason why I picked the music.”

Mick only hums in response, allowing himself to get lost in the memory. He can see the edges flickering, Len’s powers deciding that they’ve had enough, even if he hasn’t.

It’s a nice reminder, in a way. 

He doesn’t have to live in memory, anymore. He gets to take Len with him when he goes back to the present.

He gets to celebrate again.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
